Fic: "While Gold Remained," Remus/Sirius. (Reply)

I wrote this in the fall of 2007, and it's been chilling on my hard drive ever since. I don't quite remember why I didn't post it sooner. I polished it up last year and was going to post it then, but I forgot about it. Here it is, finally. ...I suspect it might be as much Shoebox fanfic as HP fanfic. ;p

While Gold Remained. Remus/Sirius. Set before things stopped being okay. Warning: banter, porn, and bantery porn.

"They've kicked me out," says Sirius, not sounding terribly bothered by the fact. He's sprawled face-down on his bed, head by the footboard and bare feet on the pillows, drapes flung open to showcase his misery to all the world--or Remus, at least.

Remus is sitting crosslegged on the end of his own bed, and doesn't know what to do. Sirius has been morose since breakfast, even begging off a trick with James and Peter by saying he had a headache, and wouldn't Moony come take care of him? So Remus went up to the tower with him, and since then he has been asking Sirius to tell him what's wrong and making vague comforting noises in his direction. Now Sirius has told him, and it sounds horrible, only Sirius doesn't seem to mind. "You mean your family?" Remus tries to clarify, hoping he's wrong.

"My mother, to be exact. You heard that 'you are no longer a Black' bit in the Howler. Did you see Regulus's face?" Sirius grins into the quilt. "Bet he's pleased. Now there's no one to stop him getting my money and my house and those fucking house elf heads. Didn't want that stuff anyway."

I didn't see his face, Remus doesn't say. I was caught up seeing yours. "What are you going to do? I'm sure my parents would give you a place--"

"Don't worry about it. Prongs and I figured it out. I'm staying at his house, we'll be like brothers. It'll be amazing. You should come visit."

"That's good," says Remus. There's no point asking why his own house wasn't included in the consideration. James's family can probably give Sirius a whole room, whereas Remus's could only give him a couch. Sirius will be more comfortable at James's. It's more like what he's accustomed to.

Sirius lifts his head. "You will come visit, won't you? It wouldn't be summer without a Moony."

Remus picks at a loose thread on his quilt. "I don't know. I'd only be able to stay a couple of weeks, and I wouldn't be much fun for one of them. You know how it is."

"Of course I know. I want you there anyway, okay? Say you'll come."

"We'll see."

Sirius gets up and comes over to curl up on Remus's feet. "Don't give me that. If you don't come, Prongs and I will come to your house in the dead of night and spirit you away. Think of how embarrassing that would be if you were sleeping naked!"

"I don't sleep naked, and get off my feet."

"I will not. And you never know, do you? Summer gets very hot. You might have decided 'just this one night,' and that will be the night we climb in through your window and tackle you."

"There will be no tackling of me."

"I think there will be. Tackling of Moonys is necessary." Sirius demonstrates this by removing himself from Remus's feet, knocking Remus to his back, and very forcefully rearranging himself on Remus's chest.

"You're mad."

"You've only just noticed? Maybe you should try on Prongs's glasses."

"No, I've known it since second year." When you were daft enough to stay friends with me, Remus doesn't add.

"Then why haven't you told me until now? My mind has been steadily deteriorating, yet you have staged no intervention!"

"I was under the impression you already knew." And there it is--Remus's mouth twitches, and his tiny smile grows into a wide and silly grin to match Sirius's. "You make it very hard to have a serious conversation."

"Stupid! Every conversation with me is a Sirius conversation. I'll have you know that the girls are lining up to have Sirius conversations, but here I am having one with you instead."

"I'm sure I'll be very grateful and all that, once you get off me so I can breathe!" Remus shoves him hard, and then they are wrestling, rolling, whooping. Sirius is bigger but Remus is faster, and when he pins Sirius, Sirius throws his head back and laughs.

"You are brilliant, Moony, and I simply refuse to spend a whole summer without you. If you won't come to James's, then I'll come to you. I'll live under your bed. I'll be very quiet, your parents will never know I'm there."

"Until you eat them out of house and home, that is."

Sirius squirms suddenly, flips Remus onto his back again, and sits on him. "Oh, you wound me! I couldn't gorge myself on your food. I'd lose my figure, and then there would be no girls and Moony wanting to have Sirius conversations."

"You are a git. I'll talk to you even when you are old and grey."

"I will never grow old, but I'll be content to grow grey if I look as nice as you."

"Don't pull my hair."

"Why not? It is nice, you know. Makes you look dashing and distinguished."

"There wasn't grey in my hair before I became--before. So it reminds me."

"How about this: why don't you let it remind you of the day one Sirius Black quoted Shelley at you, then kissed you soundly?"

"But you haven't quoted--what?"

"Art thou pale for weariness of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth, wandering companionless among the stars that have a different birth? Only you're not companionless. You'll always have me and James, and Peter. And you needn't worry about anyone's birth. That Shelley, haha, seemed to think birth can make one companionless--but I thought, you know, pureblood star, that's me. And I wander--"

"Sirius."

"--far more than you do. What?"

"If you aren't careful, I will always remember this as the day one Sirius Black quoted Shelley at me, then rambled very nervously about nothing in particular."

"Oh."

"Yes."

"Well, I wasn't sure if--"

"You can be sure. If you want, I mean."

"It's--rather different than if you weren't--you know--"

"A werewolf?"

"And again you wound me. Right in the heart, Moony. I was going to say a boy, but if that's what you think of me--"

"It's not. It just came out. Sorry."

"Right. Well. Can't be that different, can it?"

"Ow!"

"Sorry! I did say--"

"--Tackling is necessary, yes I know, Sirius, are you ever going to--mmph."

By the squirmy feeling he is experiencing, Remus is certain a niffler has taken up residence somewhere in his stomach. Or perhaps he should be blaming Sirius's knee, which is sharp and bony and digging firmly into his ribs. Sirius's hair is very long and keeps getting in his mouth, and what with the spitting-out of hair and the almost-certainly-bruised ribs, it is rather an odd kiss. Sirius is making soft, low noises into his mouth, about which Remus will definitely tease him later, but which are also making Remus's stomach-niffler do backflips. It is a talented niffler. Remus would consider entering it in niffler-backflip competitions, but Sirius digs his fingers into Remus's hair and settles his knees on either side of Remus's hips, and it becomes very hard to think.

***

James's parents are waiting, and Remus tries to tell Sirius so, but Sirius is talking loudly over him and saying worrying things such as "Don't sleep naked or we'll come for you on my motorbike, I swear it. Oh, scratch that, we shall come for you on my motorbike no matter what and don't turn green like that, Moony, it is terribly unattractive and I am a perfectly good motorbike-flyer. James only fell off that one time, and he only broke his wrist, and from that I learned that flying upside-down is unwise. So you will definitely not fall off, and we shall fly you to the house where we can frolic in the sun. Naked. It's already been decided that you will come, by bike or train or back of newt if you must. But you will come and that is final, and I am going to leave before you can say no. Goodbye!" He hauls Remus into the fastest hug in the history of hugs, a hug so fleeting that Remus is able to convince himself he imagined the quick press of a mouth to his neck.

***

Remus does go to visit James and Sirius, but he is not naked and he does not go by motorbike. He takes a train through a heat-yellowed, hilly countryside, and after a day and a half of hypnosis-by-scenery, he stumbles off the train and is pounced upon by his friends. James is hugging him so that he cannot breathe, Sirius is singing a made-up song whose lyrics consist of repeating "You came, you came, you came," until Remus's ears ring and his mouth hurts from grinning, and Peter is--conspicuously not here. Peter is rarely conspicuous in anything, and Remus wonders if he should worry. "Where's Peter?" he asks, and James and Sirius glance at each other.

"I asked him, but he wouldn't come," James says darkly. "Said he had important business. Since when does Pete have important anything?"

Sirius shrugs. "He's probably just visiting some girl and knows we'd tease him forever and always if he told us so, and therefore has deigned to keep his mouth shut. Moony, come on, the motorbike has been dying to meet you!"

Remus's niffler has returned, and it is bound and determined to make him throw up before he gets anywhere near the bike. "I am more worried about dying after I meet it," he says weakly, but Sirius does not hear him. Sirius is running ahead to his black metal monster, probably so he can caress its sleek sides and whisper loving things to it. Things like do try not to kill my friend Remus; he is terrified of heights, which will make the monster angry because the monster loves heights and cannot understand why anyone wouldn't.

Remus walks very slowly to the bike. Sirius is already astride the rumbling beast and grinning like a maniac. He is a maniac, Remus reminds himself, and resigns himself to his doom.

***

Doom is trying to hang onto Sirius's slippery leather-jacketed waist. Doom is getting smacked in the face with Sirius's hair, which is all damp from the clouds they've been flying through. Doom is James somehow crammed onto the bike behind Remus, after Sirius caressed the bike a lot and asked it to please get just a wee bit longer. (James had sniggered and wondered aloud if Sirius was terribly used to asking that sort of thing.)

Doom is actually kind of fun, as long as Remus keeps his eyes shut and pretends they are swerving around very slow cars instead of very fast aeroplanes.

***

When the bike skids to a halt in the yard of James's house, Remus throws himself to the ground, moves an earthworm out of the way, and gives the grass a lingering kiss.

Sirius hauls him to his feet by the back of his shirt. "Don't kiss the dirt, you'll make me jealous. I hope that wasn't tongue I saw."

"You do not understand our relationship," Remus says haughtily. "The grass and I have a deep and abiding love."

"Say goodbye to my front yard, now," says James. "Mum has cake, and I have it on good confidence that it is a very chocolatey cake."

***

The cake is indeed chocolately, and Remus eats four slices before James's parents shunt them off to bed. Remus puts up half-hearted complaints ("Hasn't yet spent enough time with his true love the yard, I imagine," explains Sirius, hauling Remus away by the collar), but he really is tired and sleep sounds wonderful.

Sirius drags pillows and blankets from his room into James's, and piles them beside Remus's camp bed. "We should have a proper sleepover. Moony can fall asleep, and Prongs and I can stay up discussing our feelings."

"Do that much these days, do you, James?" Remus mumbles into his blanket, and is rewarded by a pillow to the head from James.

"It's Sirius that never shuts up about his bloody emotions. As best mate, I have the duty of listening. You should thank me for it, Remus. He's always going on about you in particular."

Remus pulls his blanket over his head, shuts his eyes, and hopes that James will think that he has fallen asleep and not follow this worrying line of conversation. But the blanket is snatched away, and Remus opens one eye to see Sirius looking oddly thoughtful. Sirius hates thinking. Something is up.

"Guess I do talk about Moony a lot," Sirius says to James. "Any objections?"

Remus wonders if he has enough time to grab his blanket and hide again before Sirius answers.

"Here's what's up," says Sirius, and kisses Remus very gently. Remus isn't sure whether he's trying not to scare James or trying not to scare Remus, but it doesn't matter because his mouth is kissing Sirius back completely without his permission, and James is not screaming in horror so maybe it's okay.

James studies them. "All right, then." He grins at them and curls into his blankets, and just like that it is okay.

***

Morning surges into James's room with all the delicacy of an elephant practicing needlepoint. Remus burrows into his blankets to escape the onslaught, but in a repeat of the night before, the blankets are hurled from his body to the floor, and he abruptly finds his bed full of Sirius. "Oof," Remus says mildly, wondering if his lungs have been punctured or have just partially collapsed.

James sticks his head out of the tangle of sheets on his bed. "Mind waiting till I've got my glasses on? Then I'll leave you two to your passionate embrace and go eat all the bacon by myself."

"I'm torn! Bacon or Moony, bacon or Moony..."

"I imagine," says James as he stumbles out of bed and heads for the door, "that you will be perfectly able to eat one and still have room for the other."

"What's this about eating?" Remus asks. He starts to edge out from underneath Sirius, but Sirius drags him back.

"Lie down and stay," Sirius orders. "What Prongs was insinuating is that I think you look delicious in the morning." His lips are cool and dry against Remus's throat. "And he would be correct. All rumpled and rather pink as you are? I could eat you right up. You know how it goes--huff and puff and blow." He buries his hands in Remus's hair and his tongue in Remus's mouth, and slips his fingers under the waistband of Remus's jeans.

Remus has never thought much of his cock. He supposes it's all right; it's always done what it's supposed to. It's never been in Sirius's mouth before, but that's okay because Remus is thrilled to have it there. What surprises him is that Sirius wants it there. He considers pushing Sirius away just long enough to ask a few questions, like why and have you ever, but it's actually kind of hard to form words when there's a tongue where Sirius's is; Remus is too busy remembering to breathe and not make too many embarrassing noises.

Sirius takes his mouth off Remus's cock just long enough to say, "Hey, put your hands in my hair."

Remus barely comprehends. Sirius's hand is down between his own legs, where he's...oh. "Sirius, you're--"

"Yeah." Sirius's voice is scratchy. "Don't look so surprised." He slides his mouth down around Remus again.

Remus puts his hands in Sirius's hair, because--well, he doesn't know quite why. Because Sirius asked him to. Because Sirius is making really, really excellent noises and he has just made Remus come. Because Sirius didn't spit it out and Remus has never imagined a boy doing that, so if Sirius wants hands in his hair in return, then Sirius will get what he wants. Because Remus thinks he'll need a dose of Skele-Gro to be in any shape to eat bacon.

Sirius stays on his stomach in between Remus's legs, looking immensely pleased with himself. "Well?"

"How can you say--" splutters Remus. "I don't know what you--why?"

Sirius shrugs and pets Remus's belly. "It was a pleasure sucking you off."

"Nrghk," says Remus.

"There once was a man from Nantucket--"

"I don't care how much you love quoting poetry; you are not going there."

"Oh, I think I am going there again and again, as many times as I possibly can."

"Could I perhaps eat my breakfast first?"

Sirius squints at him. "Do you promise to break up with the front lawn if I let you up for bacon?"

"Only if you break up with the motorbike," says Remus, wriggling out from under Sirius. He can smell the bacon and hear James laughing at something his mother said. Summer and Sirius stretch out endlessly before him.